This invention relates to portable lathes and in particular to a bearing arrangement for a portable lathe.
Portable lathes of the type utilized with this invention are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,591 and British Pat. No. 1,450,774, published on Sept. 29, 1976. A rotary bearing arrangement for the tool carrying head of the lathe is disclosed in the U.S. patent, while a ring with a sliding bearing surface is disclosed in the British patent.
With the fixed ring bearing arrangement, such as is disclosed in the British patent, it is difficult or impossible to compensate for wear between the relatively sliding elements constituting the bearing surfaces for the tool head. Moreover, accommodation of dimensional tolerance variations is problematic due to the fact that the various bearing elements are relatively fixed in an axial sense relative to each other.